Nice To Someone Who Just Had Baby

slanted eyes as Prohibition created forensic science

In this image courtesy of the family Gettler, observed (with costume) to Charles Norris, sitting, and Alexander Gettler in the laboratory of Bellevue Hospital

A wealthy banker's son, the pathologist Charles Norris, and a drinker and gambler, chemistry professor Alexander Gettler, put the basis of forensic science in the U.S.. Even before they were European forensic (the pioneer could be English Mateo Orfila), Norris and Gettler applied the scientific method to the investigation of murders, suicides and poisonings. In his new book, Poisoner's Handbook (The manual of the poisoners, not yet published in Spain), Pulitzer Prize winner Deborah Blum recounts the adventures of these two characters in the New York's ban on alcohol. U.S.

UK had inherited from the coroner system, kind of officials responsible for investigating violent deaths. But in New York in the early twentieth century, the institution was discredited. No formation of any kind, the position of coroner was an elected official subject to the vagaries of politics. Charged for the death certificate and, as stated Blum in his book, 'cause you decided lightly. In a certificate can be read the following diagnosis as a cause of death: "Act of God." In others they were not sure: "O assault or diabetes."

To change the situation, the mayor of New Norris named York to the new post of chief medical examiner in 1918. Son of a wealthy family, studied pathology Norris fans in Europe. By then he was responsible for the New York Bellevue Hospital laboratories. This would install Norris forensic services in the city, autopsy rooms and the morgue. He was passionate about his work as he spent the 15 years he spent in paying out of pocket because of the instrumental and invoices to budget shortages. Toxicology Laboratory

Norris first thing he did was to sign his second in Bellevue, Alexander Gettler. And, between them, set up the first laboratory U.S. Toxicology. Gettler not bear that a poisoner is away with it. When he learned of the possible emergence of a new poison, down to the butcher on the corner to buy a kilo of beef liver, cut it into thin layers and were injected with different doses of venom. Then, rehearsing how to detect it.

"They were the parents of forensic science in America," says Blum, who was a science writer and now works as a teacher. "In fact, Norris founded the first university program to train doctors in forensic medicine." In early 1923, for example, Norris gave a lecture at the School of Detectives of New York for the opening of the new course. It was the first time there came a scientist. Since then, candidates would pass through his lab to participate in autopsies.

As Gettler, also professor at the University of New York, appears in textbooks as the father of forensic toxicology in the U.S.. "But more important than this is the fact that both were visionaries. The medical examiner was not a science in those years and they knew they had to be. Changed the way scientists working in the criminal justice system," says Blum. Alcohol and crimes

the early hours of January 16, 1920 people gathered in Times Square for leave of alcohol. The next day went into effect 18 amendments to the U.S. Constitution by prohibiting their use. Two years earlier, Gettler wrote in the journal JAMA, "our government's prohibition of the manufacture of distilled spirits will certainly lead to illegal tampering."

Indeed, from then until the lifting of the ban, there is a kind of chemical warfare between the government and a new player emerged in the shadow of Prohibition, the Mafia. If the first industrial adulterated alcohol, the other the re-distilled to sell.

The only alcohol that could be developed on American soil was industrial. Since 1906, manufacturers were required to denature by adding other substances such as methanol which is able to let blind and even kill a person, to avoid charges that had alcohol.

But of the 300,000 million liters that the Government authorized each year for cooling, perfumes or solvents, 40,000 million was lost on the road. The mobsters learned to reverse the process. Chemists employed by the underworld redistilled stolen items in factories to feed the demand of gin and whiskey of the tens of thousands of illegal gambling houses that populated the entire geography. Only in New York were located more than 35,000.

At first it was relatively easy. The Government forced to mix one hundred parts of ethyl alcohol with two methyl. The first boiling above 68 degrees, the second a little earlier, at 65. Thus, with proper equipment, they managed to evaporate the methanol, ethanol leaving ready to put aroma of gin, some sugar for rum or a dye in the case of whiskey.

The Treasury Department, responsible for enforcing the ban (the real Elliot Ness to Al Capone was caught for one of its officials), was forced to devise new ways to prevent alcohol consumption. Up to 70 different tested recipes, each more dangerous than before. They used acetone, quinine bisulfate, kerosene and carbolic acid. Up to 10,000 dead

But alcohol deaths began to rise. Charles Norris himself began compiling statistics for deaths from alcohol and hold press conferences to make them denounce the "trial of extermination" that was carried out by the Government. In 1926, according to their data, 11,700 people died from drinking alcohol in the U.S.. The problem was that it was not known then identify his remains in the body and, more importantly, find out if the deceased had been drinking too much alcohol or adulterated with some poison.

His second, Gettler, tested up to 58 ways to detect, in human tissues and in the actual drink. Both are synthesized by the liver as formaldehyde, but the methyl in more quantity, so it takes longer to metabolize it. It also creates another byproduct, formic acid, highly toxic. Gettler found a system to detect the amount and quality of alcohol in the liver and brain.

author estimates that, 10,000 Americans died from drinking adulterated by order of his Government. "Thousands more died from drinking illegal liquor various ways or directly from industrial alcohol," he adds. There are exaggerations

of Professor Dr. Blum or Norris. When viewing the press of the time, as The New York Times and the Daily Record, both Democrats and the liberal press accused the government of being behind the poisoning. On three occasions, the Democrats (mostly attached to the block wet as it was known to pro alcohol) motions voted against providing funds to corrupt the industrial alcohol. But they were in the minority. It was not until November 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency and assure you that the happy days "are back" Prohibition was over.